Comment by jaltekruse | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jaltekruse | Hacker News Reader

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I can assure you I am not pro-Russia.

I'm happy to take suggestions on edits for the website.

I do support green energy targets, but I believe this situation proves the world did some math wrong. Russia is much more aggressive than we were willing to accept even a few weeks ago. The west has been increasing its purchasing of Russian gas and oil despite the fact they had annexed Crimea and supported the separatists.

I think we need to talk about what needs to happen in the short term right now. Most of the discussion I am seeing everywhere is people on the right taking shots at Biden and Germany for shutting down domestic production and caring about green energy targets.

Part of what I'm trying to get everyone to realize is that the left and right are on the same side. Conservatives that are taking a second to stop mocking the green energy movement are also shouting "this is why energy independence is national security".

I'm trying to bridge 2 sides of the debate, I think us lefties need to accept that energy independence in any means possible might be more strategically important in the short run.

Assuming you are genuine, there's plenty of sensible advice out there already on how to cut your fossil fuel usage. Linking that to the current story of Russia's oligarchs using their fossil profits to invade and kill democratic neighbours gives people an impetus to do things that will actually make their own life better, but that they may not have heard about, because right-wing propaganda has drowned it out.

As I shared recently, most countries will have the equivalent of

https://energysavingtrust.org.uk/energy-at-home/

Which will tell you ways to save money, and keep your house warmer while also reducing fossil fuel usage. Find and disseminate that, the wider knowledge of fossil fuels being an expensive con will do more to destabilize Putin than anything I've read on your page currently.

If you want people to tie it closer to Ukraine, point out that these sites will often tell you how much money you will save by making these choices, get people to donate that money to Ukraine or an organisation that is helping us to move off fossil fuels.

But obviously people aren't doing this on a massive scale. Despite appliances getting more efficient, energy consumption continues to rise faster than population increases.

I'm trying to mobilize a wartime effort of massive reductions to increase western soft power. If just 2-5% of the buildings currently being heated in the world could have their thermostats effectively off that would change the calculus that pretty much all of Europe is struggling with. It is the exact reason we were slow to cut off SWIFT, and we are still holding back on anything like a proactive oil or gas embargo from our side.

Those options are totally off the table if we cannot rally widespread support for righting Russian aggression, maybe even going further than lighting up buildings with colors and sending money to a out-manned nation that is under siege.

Energy consumption isn't a problem. Only fossil fuel use. And it only benefits Putin to conflate the two of those things, as they are quite distinct.

In the short term the two are interchangeable, we cannot build enough solar panels and batteries to help the people being killed in Ukraine today.

So this is just anti-renewable trolling which happens to help Putin then, ok, carry on and have fun.

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